Eye on the prize

After his tense talk with Oberion, Terridus made his way up to his room in the castle. Oberion had told him that he would be calling for a meeting of the royal family the next day and Terridus was worried about just what would come of the meeting. He realized that With Oberion back, the leadership of the golden circle was now in flux.

Terridus, in an effort bring the best leadership to the front of the family had only further complicated the situation. Renee had fought a rebellion to unseat her farther while she was crown prince. She lost and was then forced into an exile of sort by Elmdore who was then named the new crowned prince. When Oberion disappeared, Elmdore was put on the throne and made Terridus crown prince. As crown prince, Terridus then sought to get the old crown prince back to put her on the throne against the wishes of both Oberion and Elmdore. The second Renee came back however, Elmdore suffered a loss and Terridus became acting king while trying to make Renee king, only to have Oberion show back up and retake the throne.

And let's not get started on weird the whole situation with Zahava is...

Terridus got back to his room and waved off the guards by the door and floated into his room. He moved over to his work bench and stared blankly at some plans he had laid out on it and tried his best to predict how the next 24 hours in Amber would go and in the end who would be seated on the throne.

Terridus was fairly certain that Elmdore no longer wanted anything to do with being the king. HIs reign was being undermined from the begining by not only a rebellion in the wildlands but even by his own son. Terridus would have to find some way to make peace with his father about that at some point and knew that he may never be the same with the death of his sister being some what his fault. Those that didn't understand the man may think of him as emotionless but his sons knew better than that.

Renee may still be recovering from her time spent in her coma but Terridus saw this as a dangerous situation. She had rebelled before on the grounds of doing it for the betterment of the family. If she still had such pure intentions she may start up her attempts to take the throne once more. The golden circle was under attack and the eagle was still a danger. The last thing Amber needed right now was an other civil war. Terridus would even feel more responsible if such a thing were to occur because of his egging on of Renee to take the throne. The only thing he could hope for was that Renee would be sensible about the situation at hand and work with the family until the crisis was over. If Her and Oberion wanted to kill each other in the market place, they could do it after the eagle was dealt with. Terridus wondered if the eagle had some how egged on Renee in the beginning to rebel in an effort to get it's plan kicked off but some of that logic just seemed paranoid.

Oberion's return put Terridus in a dangerous spot. Terridus had gone against Oberion's orders of having Renee 'exiled' and Terridus also openly attacked Oberion when last they met. Oberion had struck Terridus's brother and such a betrayal would not sit with him. While attacking Oberion, Terridus had then helped cause a shadow storm and destroyed the old castle. Also, While Oberion was masquerading as Gaius, Terridus had had a few arguments with him. Over all, Oberion was most likely not pleased with Terridus. Terridus debated hiding behind his father and Renee but figured the two of them would have enough things to worry about themselves and figured he'd deal with his grandfather's judgement alone.

And what us his reign as king? As short as it may have been, Terridus would have never thought himself able to hold such a position. Maybe he never actually was holding the position. With Oberion being in the picture the entire time he could have taken back over whenever he wanted to and did just that when the time came. Terridus never wanted to be king, he knew he wasn't cut out for it. He always wanted his older brother to be king. Lises was much kinder of a person and cared a lot about everyone in the family. He cared for them much more than they deserved. All of them.

The idea that Oberion was around the entire time and did nothing was a comforting and infuriating notion. In some regards Oberion seeing Terridus fit enough to hold the title for even the briefest time, was a vote of confidence and him doing nothing to stop his saving of Renee was some what of a granting of permission. But at the same time, Khan's rebellion and Peregrine's death was all on Oberion's hands. As head of this family, it should have been up to him to quash that rebellion and save poor Peregrine. All it looked like to Terridus was that Oberion used his father Elmdore as a fall guy while he pulled off his faked death plan. Renee claimed that Oberion was not interested in the other members of his family and that he only cared about himself. This could be a prime example of that line of logic.

Terridus floated over to his bed and for the first time in a long time just laid down and thought. As the conversations, schemes and angles played out in his mind, he feel into a downward spiral of hopelessness. After a few moments of the thoughts he shrugged the entire thing off and settled on one concrete notion: Regardless of what he does, he can't do everything by himself. Terridus resigned himself to just waiting to see what the family meeting would bring. There was really no point in worrying about it anymore.

"Fuck it, we'll see who ends up on the throne."

If someone had told Terridus 100 years ago he'd be sitting on the throne of Amber, he would have laughed. If someone had told Terridus 50 years ago that his father would be so ok with turning the title over to Renee, he would have argued with them.If someone had told Terridus anything about the eagle ever, maybe he would be able to help...